N°150, Paris

The project achieves this by assembling, in a cluster of buildings covering three streets and seven addresses, three clearly identified and autonomous entities: a street level plinth of stores on Champs Élysées, a 100-room five-star hotel on the Haussmannian upper floors, and a new generation layered multiscreen cinema on rue Arsène Houssaye.

The refurbishment is total, a complete transformation of the building. Yet through a series of interventions, small mechanisms, the spirit of the place re-emerges, unity is restored.

The project amplifies two advantages of the existing buildings: a 60-metre long frontage on the Champs Elysées and its mix of Haussmannian and Art Déco heritage arising from the creation in 1928 of the ‘Les Portiques’ shopping arcade. The street level becomes a showcase, smooth, almost evanescent. A few lines of pale gold anodised aluminium highlight its geometry. The distinction between the buildings is marked by the advancement of the load bearing elements, the setting-back of the porches. As is the distinction between eras, by a ribbon that underlines the Haussmannian structure above.

The entrance to the hotel is signalled by a contemporary glass canopy. The functional becomes sensual. The staircase, a precious object, is transformed into curve and counter-curve by an interplay of double turns housing two glass elevators at their heart.

Light is everywhere, even underground… or rather underwater, since in the courtyard a strip of water becomes a glass roof running from the stores, an Alice in Wonderland mirror.

It finds its companion in a pool on the roof. Free of any technical imperatives, the fifth surface becomes a terrace, a place for bathing and idling around an infinity pool that runs along a glass wall towards the main courtyard of the hotel.

Here there is a further attic floor, reaching to the surrounds of the building, turning into a panel of glass, the roof a golden horizon overhanging a long balcony.

Legacy and modernity coexist in harmony, as in the main courtyard where a new wall of pale concrete connects to the existing facade. It recreates the rhythm, the shadows of the Haussmannian openings, without attempting to imitate their outlines, or their materiality.

Glass, metal, concrete, stone are in dialogue, creating unity by the connections created between them at each scale of the project.